Most people know that “speed to lead” is everything in sales. But, most people don’t know the actual stats.

In his excellent book, The Conversion Code (about Internet Marketing), Chris Smith shares some great data.

If you call an internet lead back within five minutes of receiving it, you are 100 times more likely to convert the lead to a sale than if you wait 30 minutes.

The average response time, according to Chris’s data, is 3+ hours at most firms that receive internet leads. And 47% of leads never receive a response at all.

His data also shows that you will increase the number of leads you contact from 48% to 93% by calling more than once (up to six times). He recommends never leaving voice mails, but instead calling at minute 1, minute 10, minute 30, etc. This is b/c people don’t answer their phone if they don’t recognize the incoming number, but if that same number calls repeatedly, people do.

His last piece of advice is to engage prospects for as long as possible with questions and conversation b/c they will likely not want to go through it all again with another firm.

In summary, call fast, call repeatedly, don’t leave messages, and chat for a long time.

At JVM, we work with referrals as opposed to internet leads and we employ a lower key sales approach than Mr. Smith advocates. But, many of the Realtors we work with cultivate internet leads often so we thought we’d share the info. We also just found it interesting, and there are still lessons for us as well.

Our popular blog is written daily by JVM's founder, Jay Voorhees. The posts are always short and sweet, with an interest rate update and industry or business insights. Our blog is for general educational and informational purposes only, and should not be construed as advertising or relied upon as legal advice.

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